aphrodisiac: chaza: zostały, i am reading a book and i am coming across this word where there should be the word for 'was' not clear on what you are trying to say here. Was/were- były in Polish, but can also be a part of "passive voice" (strona bierna in Polish) eg. on był zmęczony- he was tired. and so on:) zostały - became (past form) - can also be a part of [passive voice eg. zostały znalezione - were found
In English 'to be' can be used in both imperfective (was being) and perfective (has been, was) sentences. In Polish 'być' can be only imperfective. So, we need some different means to express the perfective 'to be' and we use 'zostać' to do that. This is why 'zostały' can be translated as 'was' e.g.:
it is done - to jest zrobione
it has been done - to zostało zrobione
The letter is written in English - List jest napisany po angielsku.
The letter was (or has been) written in English - List został napisany po angielsku.
In the last example above you could also say 'List był napisany po angielsku' but only in sentences like:
When I saw it, it was written in English (so why is it in Chineese now?). - gdy go zobaczyłem, był napisany po angielsku (więc dlaczego teraz jest po chińsku?)
Whether to use 'był' or 'został' depends much on the context. If you want to indicate that something just happened in the past and is finished now you use 'został'. If you want to express that something was happening when something else happened you use 'był'.
I hope I made it a little more clear now.
Cinek
|
